Though it might have been meant as a joke, the guy who said, “Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door” wrought better than he knew. I always hated those finger-stingers above, so hard to set and harder to set down.
Now there’s a bewildering variety of traps available, but the best I’ve found for the price is still a variation on the original…
These usually give me a quick, clean kill. Usually. I keep half a dozen going around the various hidey places outside the Lair. Under the Jeep’s hood I tie them down – I tie down all the rat traps – because sometimes they go away I know not where. Only two places always get two traps, the Jeep and the powershed. I usually don’t tie down the ones in the shed, but my first thought when I went to check traps this morning was that I should have: The one on the floor was missing.
I came in further, peering around the dim room, and found it – or rather the rear half of it – under one of my food shelves. And it wiggled every time I moved, like it was trying to get further away from me. But it had gone as far under as it could. It seemed unhappy.
I went out to the Jeep and got my work gloves, because sometimes mice bite. Then I pulled the trap out from under the shelf against the frantic scrabblings of the luckiest deermouse in the desert.
The particular brand I had in there, same design but a different brand than the one above, has an inexplicable plastic tube around the killing bar which doesn’t quite go all the way to the ends. That leaves a little space where the bar doesn’t meet the base, and that’s where the completely uninjured mouse had its rear leg caught. I’ve found feet in rat traps before – the rats will pull them right off rather than stay – but this little thing wasn’t quite that strong.
Zelda will be outraged to hear that I let it go, I know. In fact none of the neighbors whose opinions on the matter I know would be so (squeamish? Soft-hearted?) Truth is I don’t have a thing against the mice, I think they’re cute. But I can’t have them wrecking my stuff, so I kill a couple a day, most days. It’s just the way it has to be. But this one caught a break.
Well, yes. Sheesh Uncle Joel. If people multiplied at the rate those mice do, and there was a long line of them coming up the “road” to the Lair, and if people invaded your space, slept everywhere, ate your food and the wiring on your Jeep and cost you many hundreds of dollars and days of inconvenience and pooped and peed everywhere, you know there’s no way in he** you would be as tolerant and benevolent and forgiving as you are of those mice. Quite the opposite. Except for certain circumstances you also won’t get from people the same level of exposure to nasty almost incurable diseases as you do with mice. Why don’t you apply the same rules to the mice that you would to people? We’re cute too.
Yes, I think I am outraged. This is breeding season, and you need to be killing every mouse you can to preserve your lifestyle and health. When a hoard of uppity mice storm your property, take it over and eat the rest of the Jeep you’ll find me totally unsympathetic.
Would have been interesting if you had taken a marker to the top of Lucky’s mousy little head to see if he shows up in your trap tonight. Or if he learned anything.
You don’t have enough snakes.
Mice are almost universally cute.
People . . . not so much.
😉
At least with the old style traps, it helps to tape the base down. The problem is simple physics. When the trap springs, the same force that is trying to snap the bail around to the little beast’s neck is also trying to rotate the base of the trap.
The result is that the trap jumps. Too often it jumps away from the little beastie, saving his bacon.
Joel, have you seen the movie “Never Cry Wolf”? You could reduce your food expenses a bit… And no, I’m not gonna try it first and let you know :-), Unless there’s a Zombie Apocalypse.
Crush their little mousey skulls under your heel. You will feel guilty for only a second or two.
I once set a conibear trap inside my chicken coop to catch the raccoon raiding it. I put a cage around the outside of the trap to keep the chickens out. A chicken managed to get caught in it anyway, must have been there for hours before I got to her. I let her out and she was not too bad considering; the squeezing part had only her leg. I haven’t had a lot of luck with those conibears; I must be doing something wrong with them.
I like the new plastic mouse traps but they seem to last even less than the old wood and wire ones.